


Deleted Scenes from Marauders Five

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: Excalibur (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Coming Out, Drinking & Talking, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Pirates, Slow Burn, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: “What would it take for you to tell me just what you think and how you feel, Captain Kate Pryde?”“About two more glasses of…. that.”
Relationships: Bobby Drake/Christian Frost, Emma Frost/Kitty Pryde, Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin, Kitty Pryde/Rachel Summers, Ororo Munroe & Kurt Wagner
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Deleted Scenes from Marauders Five

“Kurt.”

“Ororo?”

“We need to talk about Kate.”

Kurt does a backflip around a tree branch, keeping his balance easily with his tail. The red false eyes of a Krakoan gateway glow happily in the background. “One of my favorite mutants, always, our new Captain Kate, and you’ve been checking in with me about her _an der Tagesordnung sein._ Why so worried, _mein Freund_?”

“One of mine too, I have been almost like a mother to her in the past, and I worry that she has forsaken all discretion and all judgment as the Red Queen. That she has become what she once took such care to avoid.”

“ _Öffentlich bisexuelle?_ Forgive me, wind-rider, but that seems like more a solution than a problem today, _nicht wahr_?” You can see Kurt’s smile from halfway across the island.

Ororo’s smile is more restrained. “I’m just afraid she’ll do something she’ll later regret.”

“We have all done such things,” says Kurt, landing—as always—on his feet. “Maybe it’s Kate’s turn.”

*

Bobby can stand on the open-air deck of a submarine in his fluffy bathrobe and nothing else. Christian Frost prefers a double-breasted coat with an inexplicably long gold sash. Since when do submarines have open-air decks? This one does.

“Christian?”

“That’s me. Can you hand me my sunglasses, darling? I can’t face the world without them.”

“I can’t face the world without a smile, so I understand. Now that we’re dressed—“

“Half-dressed, in your case, my love—“

“Now that we’re at least half-dressed,” Bobby shrugs, “we need to talk about my ex and your sister.”

“They’re a bit closer than they used to be, from what I can see.”

“So close I’m afraid there’s no space between them, if you know what I mean.”

“And that is your business how, my supercool pal?”

“I just don’t think it’s healthy for Kate,” Bobby admits.

“Who? Oh, Kitty.”

“Kate.”

Behind his sunglasses, Christian rolls his eyes. Bobby scowls at him. People should get to choose, and change, their own names.

“Darling, if what my sister tells me is accurate this is a girl who dated Star-Lord. My sister is absolutely ten steps up from that. And twenty steps up from that chainsmoking fake James Bond. I don’t know how anyone could ever stand to be in the same room with him. Let alone on the same team.”

“We’re not talking about anyone named Peter today. But we need to talk about how weird it is for an ex-student to date a teacher. Who tried to kidnap her. At least twice. And that’s only on-panel.”

“Stop breaking the fourth wall,” Christian says with a hand-wave. “Who do you think you are, Gwenpool?”

“You should be so lucky. Anyway, she’s a mutant. Did you come to her arrival party? That was wild. Everything pink. She popped out of a cake.”

“I didn’t go to her arrival party, Bobby, because I was busy commandeering a submarine so I could go to the Arctic with you so you could fight climate change and tell our readers about the important word ‘anthropocene.’ Also, about your ABO fic….” Christian Frost trails off, momentarily losing his usual poise.

Bobby puts one hand on his hip. “Want to see what an Omega can really do, Christian?” 

Later, after saving the Arctic icecap for another summer or so, the two of them drink green and black liquids together inside an impossibly expansive submarine with a piano inside it, and a cake on a glass table. (The piano is really the ship’s helm. The cake is a lie.)

“Do you love being on the Marauder,” Christian Frost asks. “Or are you worried your friend who can’t use the gates will die out here, and that the resurrection protocols will fail her? That is why you and Storm are all over Kitty like the Secret bloody Service, isn’t it?”

Bobby looks into his drink, eyebrows pointing down. “Call her Kate.” He pauses before he goes on. “It’s like you can read minds or something. But seriously, would you trust your sister to protect her?”

Christian looks Bobby in the eye for the first time. “At this point? I would trust her with my life.”

*

Kate and Emma appear to be living together when they’re on the island. Or an island, since there are multiple Krakoas at this point; this island may not be the same one where the kids hang out and the Quiet Council meets. 

In any case they’ve got a room with a plush red carpet, a barrel of swords, a cooler for champagne, and at least one canopy bed. Kate needs round sunglasses, these days, when she’s outside—after all, she’s often on the deck of a ship, and the glare can blind any captain, and she’s sometimes really, really hung over. She takes the shades off the minute she gets indoors.

Emma’s already there. They start talking. Real talk. After a few panels about the Krakoan language, Emma asks “What’s really bothering you?”

Kate says she’s afraid the gates will never work for her and she will grow old and die without ever getting what she wants and hasn’t had.

Emma smiles. “I am afraid to die too, Katherine. Which nose would I return with?”

Kate understands that Emma isn’t talking about her nose. She’s talking about her entire body, the self-presentation she has worked for her whole adult life to create and perfect, starting back in her late teens, when she was regularly mistaken for Christian. She used to look a lot more like him than she does now. A lot more.

Emma needs a hug. Kate gives her one.

Kate loves her pirate gear so much that she hasn’t taken any of it off, except the hangover protection shades, but she’s uninihibited enough at this point to say, and to show, how she feels. 

“Sometimes I still wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d picked you instead of the Professor,” Kate says, smiling and crying at once. We see her over Emma’s shoulder pad. “And it’s so not fair.”

“What’s not fair, dear?” Now we see Emma over Kate’s shoulder. The concern is genuine, though she still looks a bit…. feline.

““Now what’s really, really, really bothering you? We’re safe here. You can get meta if you like.”

“No I can’t. Not just like that. Who do you think I am, Gwenpool?”

“I should be so lucky. Anyway, she’s a mutant now; she may work for us someday.” Emma looks right at Kate, batting her thick lashes, fixing the younger mutant with her piercing, bright blue (or are those just contacts?) eyes.

“What would it take for you to tell me just what you think and how you feel, Captain Kate Pryde?”

“About two more glasses of…. that.”

The White Queen hands the Red Queen two champagne flutes. A moment later they’re both empty; one of them almost shatters on the floor, but Kate stoops to phase the glass just in time.

“No, I meant _that._ ” Captain Pryde points to a flask of green liquid, the same thing that Bobby was drinking. Emma pours a few fingers into a tumbler.

One panel later she’s sipping, as Bobby had. Emma’s had half a drink the whole time. Kate’s had five.

“It’s not fair,” Kate says. “I can hook up on panel with any guy who expresses an interest in me, even grossly unsuitable ones like Star-Lord. Even if I realize a couple days or months later that he was a big mistake. And if I crush out on an older woman, an authority figure, I can practically slip into their bed and tell everybody about it the next day. Like Courtney Ross. Or you.

“But I’ve had three great loves in my life. One you know all about. Big metal guy, likes to paint, finds it hard to stay friends. The other two I never even got to kiss on panel. And now one’s in space, and the other is God knows where. Certainly not in a recurring X-book. We’ve had wonderful times, and in fact I'm still dating them both! and yet here I am, practically hooking up with you. Someone old enough to have been my high school teacher. Someone who tried to kidnap me twice. And who blew up a horse.”

Emma starts to object, then shuts up so Kitty can finish. This speech has been a long time coming. Kitty’s whole life, by some measures. Emma knows.

“Emma, what’s wrong with me? How can I be the Red Queen and still be this way? How can I drink myself into oblivion, or at least beyond the level of intoxication where it’s not safe for me to be a ship’s captain, and still feel compelled to put all my considerable queer erotic energy into hints and margins, handholdings, and ‘best friends’ and ‘sisters forever’? What the hell happened on the roof at Harry’s Hideaway a year and a half ago and why will I never, ever get over it? Not even if you and I kiss right now?”

“You mustn’t ruminate on the past, darling,” Emma says, finally finishing that one mimosa. They are obviously about to kiss.

Instead she whispers in Kate’s ear. “I’m so much better now than I was then. Morally and in other ways. Also, you know you’re about to hook up with me, and once you’re established on panel, beyond a doubt, as bi, because we hooked up, you and Illyana can French kiss for an entire two-page spread when she’s back from space, then get under the covers together, your bare shoulders showing, and nobody’s going to be able to say it’s not real.” Emma pauses. “Or you can do that with Rachel. And you can do that with Rachel. The choice will be yours. And theirs, of course. But yours.”

The smile remains on Kate’s face as the White Queen walks away, her point made. Kitty turns her back on her resourceful older teammate, still smiling. Emma's a very good teacher, Kate realises. It's such a delightful realization that Kate doesn't even mind feeling, still, like a student. Maybe she'll always feel that way. And that's OK. She’s so happy she can’t help but phase through the floor.


End file.
